Jon Schaffer has issued a statement fron the road and revealed Iced Earth's upcoming album title:

"Hello gang! Just a quick update for you from the road. We had a great weekend playing at Sweden Rock Friday and the Rock Hard festival in Germany on Saturday. The band's having a lot of fun, and today we begin rehearsing the new songs for the forthcoming CD, titled 'Dystopia'.

"We begin master tracking in Florida in two weeks and will be traveling between Europe and the US this summer to play festivals and finish the new album. I can honestly say that I haven't had this many songs give me goose bumps since we recorded 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', way back in 1998, so this is also very exciting.

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"As you can imagine, it's a very busy time for us. I think we're all having emotional ups and downs as we're coming to the end of an era with Matt's retirement, and we're also very excited about the future with Stu coming onboard, so it's a little bit of a roller coaster ride for us. However, we are having a killer time, and Matt is performing at his absolute best and going out with pure class and style, which is always the way he rolls.

"We also had a great time hanging out with the guys in Down last night at the Rock Hard festival. Freddie and my manager joined them onstage for a nice jam at the end of the show. It was brilliant and a lot of fun.

"We'll be keeping you posted on updates as things move along through the summer. Best to you all!!"

Here's some fan filmed footage of Fan Iced Earth performing live at the Rock Hard festival on June 11th 2011.